by Stephanie Morrill | Sep 1, 2021 | Brainstorming, Discovery Writing, First Drafts, Story Ideas
Story ideas come to us in all different ways. Sometimes our spark of a story idea is a character facing a dilemma or making a hard choice. Other times, we might have an idea for a world we want to explore. This is especially common with fantasy or science fiction...
by Jill Williamson | Sep 24, 2020 | Brainstorming, Discovery Writing, First Drafts, Go Teen Writers Books, Story Beginnings, Story Endings, Story Ideas, Story Middles, The Craft of Writing, Writing Life
Today is the day! We are revealing the book cover for Go Teen Writers: Write Your Novel. This is a book that Stephanie, Shannon, and I wrote for beginning writers. We know it’s hard to finish a first draft. We know it’s hard to stay motivated to write ONE...
by Jill Williamson | Sep 23, 2020 | Brainstorming, First Drafts, Scenes and Scene Structure, Story Structure, Writing
An outline is a general plan. For a novel, that can be as simple or as in-depth as you want. Some writers outline every single scene of their novel before they write. Some only outline a little bit. Some write a synopsis as an overview of the story they’re planning to...
by Jill Williamson | Sep 18, 2020 | Brainstorming, Characters, First Drafts, Learning from Other Authors, Plot, Story Beginnings, Story Ideas, Story Structure
Brainstorming: Idea and Genre My stories always begin with a kernel of an idea. Something I’m intrigued by or curious about. When I’m in that early brainstorming phase, I tend to carry a notebook around with me everywhere. I try to come up with an original premise,...
by Jill Williamson | Aug 26, 2020 | Antagonists, Brainstorming, Writing
We’ve talked about conflict and how the main character in your story needs to face obstacles as he sets out to achieve his objective. Most often that conflict comes in the form of an antagonist (or villain) who stands opposed to the hero of the story. That is not...
by Jill Williamson | Aug 12, 2020 | Brainstorming, Plot, Story Structure, Writing
Last week I posted a video of how I go about writing a sequel. If you missed it, you can watch it here. Within that video, I talked about how I used the Seven-Point Story Structure popularized by Dan Wells in this video to plot my story. Lydia asked in the comments...
